


Tether

by LittleDarlingXOX



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Detective Comics (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Red Robin (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hate Sex, Lazarus Pit, Loss of Control, Loss of Powers, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, One Shot, Power Dynamics, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Sex, what-if fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18764053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleDarlingXOX/pseuds/LittleDarlingXOX
Summary: For her love of Bruce, Talia took a risk when restoring Jason to his former self by secretly submerging him in the lazarus pit that her father currently occupied. With her help, Jason Todd escapes the House of Al Ghul with his mind and body restored to health but no one could have foreseen the rippling consequences that such an action would have. Now years later, Ra’s discovers the tether that connects his mind and body with Jason’s and uses it to his own advantages to gain power over his would-be successor, Tim Drake.





	Tether

They’re stretched out on the bed reuniting after one of Jason’s long international missions with the Outsiders when it happens, and Tim thinks, not for the first time, that it’s almost like he knew they were together.

Like they’d stirred the beast.

Tim bent over Jason and worked his teeth down the long tanned expanse of his neck; arched back and offering up the unkempt territory of his five o’clock shadow for defilement. Jason gasped, squirmed, and twisted his fingers into the corners of the pillow case under his head. Tim took in the sight from his position straddling Jason’s sharp hip bones as he pulled his own shirt up and over his head, tossing it carelessly onto the floor.

Jason yanked Tim down by the back of his neck and pulled him flush against him so they were laid out chest to chest; feeling the heat coming off each other’s bodies and the skimming tickle of hair and raised scars against nipples as their chests moved in synchronization with each shared breath.

“I’ve missed you,” Jason murmured against Tim’s lips, barely sparing enough breath and distance to get the words past his kisses.

“Really?” Tim smiled. “Show me how much.”

He found himself on his back with Jason’s strong form pressing his legs up into his chest. There was barely enough time to hook his ankles together around Jason’s back before he entered him.

No time to adjust—  No pretense of foreplay— Just Jason thrusting once, twice, three times with such uncontrolled power that Tim threw out a hand against the headboard to brace himself. He could feel the spot where Jason’s hips snapped like a switch against him, already feeling the ache in his backside— his thoughts on bruises and the soreness he’d feel a few hours from now.

There was a thrill in the urgency of it, but no physical pleasure. Jason could be rough at times but never without a care, no, in fact he was almost proud of the way he could toe the line between pain and pleasure.

“Say my name.”

“Jason—” Tim gasped between the thrusts that felt as if they were punching the breath from his lungs. “Wait, please—”

Jason’s hand shot out and jerked Tim’s chin around to look him in the face. His eyes flashed with a wild glint that Tim recognized and the fear that rose in him felt as if it might reach into his chest and stop his heart in its inhuman grasp. “Say my  _name_.”

Tim’s hand struck out and slapped Jason hard across the face, whipping his head to the side. He lay there on the bed, panic stricken, as he watched Jason turn back to face him.

Jason chuckled down at him, stilled for a moment with a look of alarm, and then dropped face first into the mattress. Tim couldn’t breathe again as Jason’s full weight fell on top of him — like a marionette with its strings cut—  his face wedging into the crook of Tim’s neck. Tim starred at the ceiling above his head, feeling Jason go soft inside him.

Finally he found air to breathe and gave a sigh of relief.

Jason’s breath fanned hot against Tim’s neck at he released a shuddering exhale before unceremoniously pulling out and rolling off Tim to face towards the far wall. Tim laid still for moment before pulling the covers up over his naked body.

His throat worked laboriously before he could finally swallow enough to get the words out. “Are you okay?”

Jason laughed, full of dark humor. “Peachy. You know, except for the part where I keep getting telepathically cockblocked by Ra’s al Ghul who wants to hijack my body so he can use it to hate fuck you into the next century.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Tim all at once and he slapped a hand over his mouth before it had a chance to become hysterical. He blinked the wetness out of his eyes until the ceiling stopped swimming above him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I—”

“Did I hurt you?” Jason cut across him.

Tim paused, and slowly let his hands drop back down to his sides. “Don’t you mean, did he hurt me?”

“No,” said Jason. “He might have control of my body, but I’m still there. I might be shoved to the back of my mind but I see what he does to you with my hands, my dick, my teeth...”

Jason scrubbed roughly at his face.

“You fought back against him and broke free quickly this time.”

“Did I hurt you, Tim?” Jason’s voice was more forceful this time. Tim knew better than to avoid answering him.

“They’re just bruises, Jason. They’re heal.”

Jason sat up in bed, pulled his knees up to his chest and let his hands lingering shakily over his temples. He breathed hard with a panicked gasp and screwed his eyes tightly shut. “I can feel him… lurking around in the back of my head, just out of my mental awareness.”

Tim shifted over on the bed and rubbed soothing patterns in one of Jason’s shoulders. “I can reach out to Zatanna again—”

Jason shook his hand off violently. “We’ve tried all of her spells and potions and charms—”

He ripped off the most recent of them, a bracelet written in a language Tim couldn’t begin to fathom, and chucked it across the room where it struck the wall and dropped like a rock.

“ — none of them work because this isn’t a demonic possession or martian telepathy. It’s the lazarus pit— the water that restitched my organs, knitted my skin back over the wounds, and filled the blood in my veins did the same to him that night. We’re linked in a way that no other two on earth are linked. It’s in the blood. I doubt Zatanna knows any more about it than Ra’s and I do.”

“Jason… tell me what I can do.”

Jason threw his feet over the end of the bed and picked up his discarded shirt. He pulled it back over his head and sat silently for a moment, just staring out the bedroom window.

“I think you should spend the night at the manor.”

“What?”

Jason half-turned towards him, his rough face in profile. “It’s not safe for you here. If he got past me once… there’s no telling if he’ll try again and push harder this time.”

It was hard to argue with that logic so Tim made his way around the room and pulled his clothing back on, article by article. He stopped in front of Jason and retrieved his abandoned shirt off the floor between his spread feet. It wrinkled in his hands, his fingers clenching and unclenching it as he stood there, glued to the spot, trying to think of words to say to change the outcome of this night. He couldn’t believe that Jason had been away from him for so long and even when he was back, Tim still wasn’t allowed to be with him but instead found himself kicked out of his own apartment.

And for his safety.

That was the worst part of it all… Jason was supposed to be safe and yet he wasn’t… couldn’t be, because it wasn’t just Jason that Tim slept with. It was Ra’s too.

Tim pulled on his shirt and finally his shoes, and together he and Jason made their disgraceful retreat towards the door, both too ashamed to meet each other’s eyes with the reality of the situation staring back at them.

Tim left the apartment by the stairs, but he didn’t go to the manor like Jason had suggested. Instead, Tim headed across town to the Hotel Belle Monico.

He was sick of this situation… sick to death of Jason’s wary touches, the enforced distances, the guilty looks that Jason threw at him. Tim did not like having a boyfriend he had to share with another anymore that Jason did.  The way Tim figured it… if Ra’s was going to fuck him, Tim would much rather know when it was happening and do it on his own terms. And as messed up as it all might seem, just maybe sleeping with Ra’s would satisfy the older man enough to stop him from using the tether to take over Jason’s body. Maybe, Tim could have Jason back.

* * *

 

Tim was led up to the room the second he walked through the hotel doors. The penthouse door opened and Ra’s leaned casually against its frame.

“Hello again, Ra’s.”

Ra’s smiled a slow and satisfying smile. “I was wondering when you’d finally show up.”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in for a drink?”

Ra’s opened the door wider for Tim to step through and in a silent apartment across town for one night, in as long as Jason could remember, he couldn’t feel Ra’s al Ghul pressed at the back of his mind. For a night, he was free.


End file.
